Since opinion pieces in the NYT have many times taken completely opposite sides (often in rapid succession), and the OpEd page is not considered journalism (i.e. it is opinion), I think your statement is patently false ("the NYT doesn't want...") unless you believe that the NYT wishes to be associated with all opinions. In fact that is how OpEd pages are supposed to work if one believes their readers might be able to think for themselves.

See their editorial submission page for yourself:

https://www.nytimes.com/content/help/site/editorial/op-ed/op...

"We're interested in everything, if it's opinionated and we believe our readers will find it worth reading."

Great. So I can paste an article from Stormfront into my blog, and no one will think less of me for it as long as I state that I found it "interesting," and believe that my readers will find it "worth reading."

Right?

Reason doesn't seem to be hurt badly by it. The editors of the Holocaust Denial issue (not some OpEd!) are still running political campaigns, and the foundation funding Reason Magazine. Does that seem like a double standard?

https://pando.com/2014/07/24/as-reasons-editor-defends-its-r...

If you are the NYT, you probably can, as newspapers are known for having opinion sections.

But you most probably are not.

Yeah, no. I don't think they'd be up for that at the NYT.

Spend some time thinking about why that might be.

I'd be happy to hear your opinion about that. Having never visited the website you mention, I can't really opine.

Stormfront would be an extreme strawman example (neo-Nazi / white supremacist in this case.) Anyone, be it the NYT or Joe Random Blogger, will find themselves associated with controversial opinions if they publish editorials from Stormfront. It's not enough to say, "Just saying, is all."

IMO it's fine for them to publish an editorial by Vladimir Putin, as long as he's not laying out a case for subverting elections in Ukraine (or here) or murdering unfriendly journalists. They caught some heat for letting him publish anything at all, if I remember correctly. But I think their decision was defensible, in part because he was writing on a matter of broad public interest, and because no reasonable person would assume the NYT supports Putin's more criminal-leaning behavior.

Fair points, I agree with them.

> If an article appears under the New York Times' logo and URL, then it can reasonably be assumed to reflect an opinion that the New York Times wishes to be associated with.

No. That is not a reasonable assumption. Newspapers frequently carry highly opposing pieces in their opinion sections. That's how newspapers have worked for a very long time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed

The NYT has, for example, hosted Putin in the opinion section:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-cau...

No, all that shows is that they're not concerned with who provides the opinion piece. (And they shouldn't be.)

It doesn't make any sense to publish something under your name and then complain when people think you're endorsing it. If I paste a pro-Nazi editorial into my blog, should I resent being held to account for it?

> It doesn't make any sense to publish something under your name and then complain when people think you're endorsing it.

That's why it's called the "Opinion section":

https://www.nytimes.com/content/help/site/editorial/op-ed/op...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.html